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Breathe. Focus.
A flash brightened the horizon, then faded into the night. I squinted, searching the sea, until the sound of splintering wood shook me back to the present. My writhing fury wall was weakening. Guards hacked at the twigs, and now, there was none to replace them.
The wood was retreating.
“Take her! Now!”
Larsson. Through one of the gaps in my barrier, his face contorted in rage. I spun on my heel and staggered for the wood. Trees bowed away from me, as though the forest, yet again, beckoned me into its sanctuary. Dagger limp at my side, I ducked beneath the leaves and bowers, jaw set.
This was not over, but it would be. Whether by sea or by death, I was leaving this isle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE SERPENT
Thick ropes wrappedHesh’s corpse to the center mast. His chest was open, the breastbone missing, and a dagger nestled deep into his silent heart. He’d been stripped of his fine clothes, his eyes plucked out, his tongue pinned to his forehead, and the wound from Valen’s axe was left to weep onto the deck.
Tavish and his ship kept to the stern of the Ever Ship, awaiting any signal, any fleck of a spell. In the moonlight, I could make out the silhouette of Tavish sprawled out on the bowsprit, humming, drawing out any unknown spells on the Ever Sea.
Sander sat in front of the blade lord’s corpse, unbothered by the gore as he traced the markings on the symbols burned into the washed breastbone. The prince would scan the symbols, then flip through thick parchment pages of writings he’d smuggled from the earth fae fort.
The prince’s curiosity suited us quite well, and already he’d found old symbols that spoke of a fire on the moon. Stormbringer insisted it meant there would be a flash—some celestial signal—when we came close.
“How is it you know?” Sander asked.
“Home,” Stormbringer said. “My village took a great deal of stock in old languages and lore. Me mam raised me up reading symbols and runes and the ancient poems and sagas until she went to me pap in the Otherworld. I know symbols and translations.”
After several on the crew shouted and cursed Stormbringer for never letting on he had much of a brain, he settled by Sander, translating the breastbone.
“Do you have more?” I asked.
The Dark Isles were in our sights, the moon was high, and I was not missing an opportunity to catch sight of this damn warded isle.
Sander brushed a thumb over the bit of bone. “Stormbringer went to fetch some old sea witch lore from his supplies; he has an old book left to him from his grandmother.”
By the hells, I didn’t even know the man could read.
“There’s an incantation burned into the bone,” Sander went on, “and we’re missing one piece of it, we think.”
Strained voices rose over the deck near the hatch. Stormbringer, the man I needed at my side, halted at the top of the steps, his arms stacked with withered leather protecting old slips of parchment.
Pallid, damn near frightened, he stepped onto the deck like the laths might crack under his weight, eyeing the source of his disquiet. Sewell leaned against the foremast, arms folded over his chest, a scowl on his features. He looked nowhere but at Stormbringer.
“What is it?” I demanded.
Stormbringer took cautious steps in my direction. “Nothing, My King. It be nothing.”
“Lies on the tongue,” Sewell grumbled.
“Stormbringer,” I shouted. “Do you take issue with Lord Sewell, now that he has revealed his voice? I assure you, no matter your history on this ship, I have greater history with him. He will win out.”
“No.” Stormbringer licked the salty air off his lips. “No issue, My King.”
Celine stepped beside her father. “What’s gotten into you?”
Without a word, Sewell tugged Celine against his side—his first show of true affection to his daughter in front of the crew—and kept his glare trained on Stormbringer. “Eyes be misplaced, boy.”
“Gods, Sewell, I mean, Lord.” Stormbringer took another step for Sander. “I wasn’t lookin’, and I didn’t know. I would never . . . if I would’ve known, I’d not be talkin’ of such things.”
